16/11/2015
9571 times read
16/11/2015
9571 times read
According to a recent BBC report about the horrendous Paris attacks, “one of the seven gunmen who killed 129 people in near-simultaneous attacks in Paris has been identified by French investigators. He was named as Omar Ismail Mostefai, a 29-year-old French citizen of Algerian origin, who had a criminal record and was known to have been radicalized” (BBC Nov 15, 2015).
After the August 2015 attack on a high-speed Thalys train between Amsterdam and Paris, I wrote the following: “some radicals might have been born and raised in Western societies, which seems to underline the real cause of their radicalization.
In other words, it is because individuals in the West enjoy so many liberties and freedoms protected by law, however, no violent radical or jihadist deserves to enjoy such Western liberties and freedoms. In fact, the Holy Quran states that a Muslim individual is supposed to reward goodness with goodness (Surat al Rahman 60).
A Muslim individual is supposed to reward with good deeds the society and country which provided them with opportunities to live a decent and safe life. However, some Islamic militants and radicals insist on tarnishing the image of their faith through their anti-social and anti- Western attitudes and behaviors.” I sympathize with the families of the victims of the Paris attacks, and offer my condolences to the great French people.
What continues to strike me as a political commentator on issues of radicalism and terrorism is the following: when does a country or a government starts responding ruthlessly against a group of people who do not deserve tolerance because they refuse integration and respond with evil acts against any generous acts offered to them in peaceful and democratic societies?! I will continue to argue that European and Western values of tolerance and human rights do not register in the minds of fundamentalists because they simply want to continue to target whatever their twisted minds project as their enemies.
Moreover, if a non-European or a non-Western individual refuses blatantly to adapt, adjust or accept the legitimacy of the basic cultural values of Western civilization, they simply may not deserve to be treated as well-deserving human beings.
In other words, the Achilles Heel in todays’Western societies is the following: you cannot offer the same liberal and democratic freedoms to someone who comes from a culture, which contradicts in its basic values with universal democratic ideals, especially if this or that individual insists on rejecting integration in the mainstream Western society.
The Holy Quran does not condone violence against any human being; but terrorists do; Islam does not condone carnage and slaughter against innocent people, but some who mask themselves as true Muslims do.
Terrorism has no religion, but represents the actions of criminal minds, which hate all humankind. However, one would ask, why do we witness today the rise of “Islamic” terrorism committed by people with previous criminal records: Jihadism seemed to have become the vehicle for atonement, albeit an affected penitence leading straight to hell.
@aljenfawi1969
By Khaled Aljenfawi